Access to Unlocked Skills in PvE

Guild Wars was essentially based on the idea of a player's skill being more important than the time a player put into the game. Bassicly, player skill vs character skill.

This thread is in regards to skill acquisition. There was an update a while back that made unlocked skills available at skill trainers to be bought. I was thrilled with this, but truly all it did was give you access to buying them sooner than was originally available via quests/trainers.

Why can we not just immediately gain access to skills we've already unlocked? Granted, that may not be the best option, but the issue is thus:

1. Experimentation in PvE is just as fun to me as it is in PvP. Without it, I don't PvE anymore at all. The storyline and normal battle mechanics, monster AI, etc just aren't enough for me.

2. The time it takes to reacquire the same skills on a different character is absurd. True, just getting 8 skills so that you can play isn't difficult, but honestly that just isn't fun to me.

3. Ascending, or the equivalent in the other chapters, gets you the ability to change your secondary. Well, all the non-class specific quests you've already completed are locked now, so you can't get the skills for your new secondary that way. That leaves doing quest after quest for the skills (which you may already have unlocked prior), or grinding for gold/skill points.

I know I'm just attacking the problems I see here, and some people might think it fun to do quests over and over for each character. Some people enjoy the grinding for gold/skill points, but I just didn't think GW was meant to have any of those kind of requirements. Having to spend so much time working before you can be experimental with skills you've already unlocked in the past simply stinks.

Also, if you can think of ANY reason whatsoever that even comes close to being logical as to why it shouldn't be changed, please post it. Even if you vote yes, post. I'm darned well intent on getting the devs to at least second guess themselves on this subject if nothing else. The more debate within the thread, the more we can either prove or disprove the issue.

this is PVE not PVP so the rules are different.

what you are asking for is the insta farming build of the day without even working for the skills.

shot down in the suggestion forum many times already.

Could you explain that a little more?

Actually, no.. I don't farm. Farming in GW is pretty much pointless.
Besides, if you've already acquired the skills on one character.. what's the difference in having them on another?

The idea could be twisted to just about any form, as long as there isn't a requirement to spend an immense amount of time working to be able to do something you've already done the work for. For example, you might have to ascend for the ability. You might only gain access to skills you've unlocked on classes other than your primary. Something to where you can actually change your build around without having to play through the entire game using a non-fun build first.

If it's been shot down so many times, I'm curious as to why. I don't have a problem with the working for a reward mindset, but the only occurances of that process in GW are either cosmetic or title related. Items, level, title, etc are all arbitrary numbers. Your ability to play as a person is what makes or breaks you, not the amount of time you've spent playing that specific character.

Please, try to elaborate a little bit more if I'm just beating a dead horse. Pointing to other similar threads would also be a great help to me to understand why the community here is against the idea. I just don't want to 'revive' old dead threads, but rementioning an old idea shouldn't be too much of a problem I wouldn't think since Andrew specifically suggested posting on this forum as well as other primary PvE communities.

I'm far from being a common Guru member, so if a moderator would be kind enough to place this thread where-ever it is deemed appropriate, I'd greatly appriciated it.

There are a few things that keep me from fully enjoying PVE because of unnecessary restrictions due to narrow "RPG" views.

One is limited ability to create an entire team build (unless I drag other people into it) because you can only have 3 heroes on a team and the rest are a mish mash of professions and skills.

Another is having to buy skills that I've already unlocked over and over again on different characters. I have an R/P and a Paragon but I've pretty much neglected my Paragon simply because I already unlocked a bunch of Paragon skills with my Ranger. I simply dont even bother trying to make different builds in PVE anymore and that's one reason why PVE is cookie cutter central.

[QUOTE]my apologies for being abrupt.

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Maybe part of the reasoning is that a new character with fully unlocked skills might be a little overpowered in those low level areas.

I think its because it makes pve totally pointless. Being able to put your unlocked skills on your heroes means that you could go through the whole game with nothing more than the skills you get from tutorials and a longbow.

If you could get all the skills you already unlocked, and I'm assuming you can use your skills better than the 'AI', you could probably solo close to the first half of every campaign. Well, except for maybe factions, since that was so short anyway. Certainly for tyria, you should be able to solo practically all the way to THK. And thats just cause its hard to guard the gates or camp the king with one person. And nightfall, you could probably solo pretty well into the RoT.

And if you can use all unlocked skills, why stop there? You may as well get given max armour and weapons from the start. And all unlocked runes and insignias. And inscriptions and mods. And why do we have to lvl up a new character at all? My other character is already lvl20 so why can't all my characters start lvl20? And why even bother with fixed primaries? Just let us reroll our pve character whenever we want right? Hell, just make the pve character creation just like pvp character creation, max lvl, max armour and gear, all mods and skills. So what's the point of pve now? You already got everything, so even farming with your max builds, what would you spend your money on? So we don't need pve at all really, just remove it from the game then, right?

And limiting it to people who have ascended? Hell, if you had all skills, you could ascend probably within a few hours of starting a new character. People have beaten their doubles below lvl10, beating the celestials with a host of lvl20 henchies is easy, and nightfall? You could solo that. It just comes down to getting there. Nightfall and factions, as long as you're a foreigner, its easy as since the "ascension" missions are like the second or third mission for foreigners. And prophs? If you had all the skills, and the cash and gear from your xunlai, you could run or pay for a run to the desert in no time flat.

As for letting us use 7 heroes instead of 3, well, I'm for that. But it would also mean that people would probably never party with anyone outside their guild ever again. And pve with an 8 man team build? You'd roll everything in your path. And I don't just mean how you crush pve right now, with 3 heroes. I'm talking almost the order of a guild team stomping pve. All you need is a longbow, then you just sit back and watch things die. You might as well just make pve into a movie, the inbetween battles are non events, so you really just sit there and watch the cutscenes.

I disagree. Skills will still be a lot less effective since you're low level with very little attribute points. And arent all skills theoretically supposed to be equal to each other anyway?

Why grind out the gold when you can just buy it from ebay? Some one needs to make sure the gold farmers and bots are paid.

I am sorry guys, but I still don't understand. The first trainer you come across in any chapter gives you access to your unlocks for that chapter's skills to buy from them.

The difference in being able to just have them vs buying them is the quantity and the fact that you have to work for it currently, wasting time and effort.

Being able to change your build around is a handy dandy thing. If you haven't unlocked the skill yet, you shouldn't be able to have access to it.. but if you already have unlocked it, don't make me unlock it again and again.

Most of the arguements were given in regards to refund points way back as well. Those that aren't similar to that debate, that us freedom seekers won out on, are indeed similar to the complaints about the AI running from AoE.

The game is easy already, too easy. Hard Mode is comming, thankfully. Having access to your unlocked skills could even be a Hard Mode exclusive.

Farmers are against it because they've already worked for their skills and want everyone else to as well? That's, no offense, stupid.

Because limiting skills is the last think that makes PvE even remotely challenging.

Once you have access to all, along with heroes, PvE is a complete and utter joke.

Games are a waste of time - entertainment, something to do when you're bored. It's something you put effort in when you're not interested into productive things.

Why does Final Fantasy have a story? I mean, it's all about beating the game. Why does it make you waste time and effort doing all the meaningless tasks when you could just view all the interesting scenes.

It's a game. That is the ruleset. If you want a skill, you need to pay money. If you use a skill, you spend energy and deal damage. There is no higher purpose or understanding to it. It's how it is.

Isnt that more of a problem with PVE itself being a joke rather than skill and hero access? PVE in GW is completely repetitive and predictable. Those things have nothing to do with skills making it a joke.

There's unproductiveness for fun and there's unproductiveness. Watching the grass grow is unproductive too but is it fun? Buying repeat skills is pointless. I dont see how it brings any fun at all. Do you actually stand there at the skill trainer and exclaim, "Woohoo! I got Burst of Agression! Again!"

And that's why I dont play FF. A lot of meaningless tasks and I dont find the scenes interesting at all.

So, you only play to re-acquire skills? You think re-acquiring skills is challenging? You even think it's enjoyment? We must be two totally different kinds of people for me to enjoy doing something the first time and lose interest the 5th or 6th, while you are able to do the same thing over and over without losing interest.

Couldn't you do that early in the game or late in the game, either one?

Having skill A vs skill B wasn't supposed to make that big of a difference in GW to begin with. Most people who play PvE aren't that good at all at the game, they are just good at seeing what the AI does and abusing it.

When you're bored, you enjoy building houses or mowing lawns? I know I sure don't. When I'm bored, I like to bowl. I go to the movies. I play video games.

You know the difference between your average video game and the good ones? Time spent grinding. You know what grind is? Doing repetitive tasks that don't actually further your progress in the game, but builds up a stat of some sort. Wether it be level, gold, or the number of skills you have. GW was originally designed and described as being a game where you could get into it quickly, high end gameplay didn't require work, etc. Skill acquisition in it's current form is none of those things outside of work/time.

If I can put on the box that it's 60 hours of game time vs 30 hours, I might make 25% more sales. You know why? People automatically assume that the amount of content is why it's 60 vs 30. When, in reality, it's because a lot of areas you won't be able to just go from point a to b, you have to walk back and forth between them killing stuff to progress your character.

GW was never designed to be about character progression. It's about Player progression. Player skill, not your character's. If you're good enough, then you should be able to do a heck of a lot more than someone who's not that good. No matter if it's PvP, PvE, you just started the game or they've been playing for years. It's about a player's ability, similar to how a FPS or RTS works. Yes, knowledge about the game is usually required, which does take time, but if you've already gained the knowledge, then the rest of the time should be spent having fun...not working.

Why do you guys fear change so much? Why do you need something to spend hundreds of hours on, when most RPGs only last 50ish hours anyhow? How can you call something that is purely work, not progressing anything but a very little bit of character development, fun?

I agree with you Mythics. Grinding out the skills for every character, in a word, sucks. I've busted my ass getting all skills on my warrior, but all my other characters are seriously lacking because of it, and I really don't feel like grinding for them to even unlock (even though they are already unlocked) all the skills for their primary professions.

Rebuying unlocked skills in a game this bloated is bull. Hereoes already have access to them immediately. Player characters should gain access to them at Ascention as part of their Ascention reward.

Peace.

Agreed. After ascending you should have access to every skill you've unlocked in one way or another, and not having to go to some far distant shithole to cap that one skill you need for the 10th time. To draw an example: why should a Nightfall character have to go to the last mission in prophecies, which is very far to go, to get one skill?

There's absolutely no point in having it the way it is. I saw in another thread that GW's purpose, from the beginning, was that you should be able to go on and play for 30 mins before dinner and enjoy it. Doesn't fit in on going to cap a 100 skills for no reason in my eyes.

Having to rebuy skills is a little cheap. Here's what I think would be best:

Remove the feature where unlocked skills are available at any skill trainer. Replace it so that unlocked skills are only available at the skill trainer you can normally get it at, however, if a skill is unlocked, it only costs the skill point, as opposed to a platinum. This would be a great change and definitely help the diversity of builds- and make skill points more valuable.

/signed

I encountered this the other night, where I was wanting to start a new PvE character to go through all three campaigns sequentially, and then remembered that though I'd unlocked a ton of skills across all professions, I was going to have to re-buy and re-capture all of those skills all over again, for like the 10th time, and just gave up on the whole new character idea.

Then I go create a PvP character, and am able to choose from any skill, profession and item that I've unlocked in almost two years of PvE and PvP play, and end up scratching my head and thinking, "so why the heck can't I do this with a new PvE character?"

I'd love to play through all three campaigns with one of the professions I've spent the least time on, but the thought of unlocking all of the secondaries again, and blowing all of the money I've saved to do so, doesn't sound fun.

Disagree entirely.

I actually feel that the skills should be either level dependent, or only available from the skill trainer who originally offered them.

I also think that heros should only be able to use skills that you have unlocked for that character, not the account, except for PvP.

I prefered the old way...everyone sold a different skill.

It was kinda fun actually having to trek different places to get skills.

The heros using unlocked skills, i always thought was a "giveaway" by Anet...its hard for me to really agree with disabling them access to unlocked skills since im so spoiled already Perhaps a different method for their skill unlocks.....

Say....level based, equivalent to what skills you have unlocked on that account and the available skills per level match what you are expected to get geographically if a player character was playing the game naturally.